Time is precious, so let’s not waste it here. This film is, by far, one of the worst pieces ever produced for those blessed with vision.
With that simple fact out of the way, the critique begins.
The film starts with a ponderous prologue. It’s 1590 and a group of Conquistadors – led by their powerful head, Coronado – go searching for the fabled city of El Dorado.
Armed with swords and facial hair, they stumble across a cavern full of gold – the very foundations of the mysterious city. It seems El Dorado is found.
But it is lost sooner than they imagined as, from the shadows, comes a horde of sword-swinging skeletons that will stop at nothing to protect their gold. And so the Conquistadors are slashed to pieces. Wonderful
Now sweep forward 400 years or so. An adventurous group of archaeologists journey to a barren area of Mexico, in search of the same El Dorado as in the prologue.
Armed with their trowels, brushes – and turbo-charged Dune Buggies, of course – they too stumble across a cavern full of gold. Again, it seems El Dorado is found.
But wait. What could happen next? Well, they soon uncover something far less tangible than gold. A curse is unleashed – one which, surprisingly, seems to be rather skeletal in its construction.
There’s no need to further dwell on the plot here. For a start, the title gives the thrust of the movie away. Secondly, it’s been insulting enough for you – the reader – to have the plot explained to you in the detail it already has, so there is no need to expand.
There are various problems with this film – so many that describing them as ‘infinite’ seems somewhat limited in it’s implication.
We’ll start with the plot itself. You remember the skeletal beings armed with swords? Well, when they do resurface, they keep their swords. No big deal. But they also know how to function firearms – at one point even respawning with this kit.
We all know that technology progresses. But it’s not as if ‘Skeletal Productions Limited’ has become a brand in the past decade.
You may argue, quite rightfully, that this criticism is meaningless. The film is not supposed to be believable. And fair enough. But the deeper point is that the acquisition of guns is irrelevant to reality, irrelevant to the plot, and irrelevant to the entertainment.
The tagline reads: “Never trust a skeleton with a machine gun”. For a start, this tagline is a lie. The skeletons rarely carry guns, and when they do, they are shotguns. Inaccuracies aside, I barely trust humans let alone these hollow dead types.
And now they’re armed with guns? Well that really made all the difference to my trust issues. I was ready to be friends…
Turning to the acting, all performances here range from terrible to abysmal. Dialogue is clunky; movement is rigid; and looks of love, scorn, hate or pity merge into one vacant emotion.
The last point cannot be emphasised enough. If it was not for the bony appearance, you’d be forgiven for confusing who is the actual army of the dead here. It says a lot about a film when you’re upstaged by a computerised skeleton taken straight from a child’s computer game.
It may be noted that no actors have been named thus far. And they will not be. To merely call them ‘actors’ is an insult to the industry. My attention was not held to the credits at any rate. Even IMDB could not provide their details. Presumably they agree with the style at play here.
And so, time is precious. Skipping through the remaining errors will be beneficial to all of us.
The cinematography is dreadful – with grainy, unfocussed shots disjointedly jerking from one scene to another throughout.
The soundtrack is terrible. The Casio keyboard loops make deafness seem a rather attractive lifestyle.
And the final thing to note about the film is the age certificate. It is, quite wrongly, labelled as an 18-certificate. This should be far higher.
Yes, it is messy, trashy and cheap so deserves more than parental guidance. But then the same applies to amateur porn – and I’m assured (by good sources) that’s still entertaining at the very least.
This film lacks any discernable quality. Thus the certificate should be dramatically raised – to an age beyond the boundaries of human development to prevent further infliction of this insufferable twaddle upon the human race.
Overall, no matter how many bullets are fired, or how many bones break, there’s no escaping that Army of the Dead is a decent B-Movie – in a world where ‘B’ only stands for ‘bad’.